Welcome to United Spirits Limited, the Diageo India's Strategy Refresh and Second Quarter Earnings Conference Webcast. Hosting the call today from USL Limited are Ms. Hina Nagarajan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Pradeep Jain, Chief Financial Officer, and Abanti Sankaranarayanan, Chief Strategy and Corporate Affairs Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit Diageo India's website at www.diageoindia.com. Now, it's my pleasure to turn the floor over to Ms. Hina Nagarajan. Over to you, ma'am. Thank you. Welcome everyone to our Strategy Refresh and Second Quarter Earnings call. It's a pleasure to speak with all of you today, and I hope you and your families are keeping well and safe. I'm joined today by Abanti, our Chief Strategy and Corporate Affairs Officer, and Pradeep Jain, our Chief Financial Officer. The way we will run this session is that I will first cover our strategy refresh. We'll take a two minutes pause after that. Then we will cover our quarter two performance and then open out to the forum for questions and answers. We'd now like to share the strategy refresh deck with you. Gaurav, if you could put that on, please. Welcome to our strategy refresh. We are quite excited to share this with you. Next slide, please. Just to give you context of where we are today since the acquisition. Since the acquisition in 2013, through a spirited journey of holistic and breakthrough transformation, the complex and fragmented USL business has turned the page to Diageo India and created a solid runway for the future. The journey has been pivoted on three pillars, profitable growth, transformed reputation, big shifts in talent and culture. With respect to financial outcomes, we have delivered in this period a total NSV growth of 2.8% CAGR, a CAGR of 6.4% growth on P&A, and our EBITDA has moved from a low 6% to now 16.6% in a normal year, I would say. Our debt has seen good progression coming down from INR 5,300 crores in 2015, with 90% reduction now to INR 443 crores. We recognize this period of transformation has had moderate top-line growth, but on the strong foundations it has laid, we are well-placed now to shift gear. Next slide, please. Towards a new mission. Our mission is to be top-performing CPG company in India, delivering sustained double-digit profitable top-line growth and long-term value to all our stakeholders. Sustained double-digit growth will mean that we will aim to improve our NSV growth by more than 300%, so three times, while staying true to our margin guidance of mid- to high-teens. In a context where there. where the need for a healthy and sustainable world has been underscored as never before, our mission takes a broader and more complete view to deliver long-term value to all our stakeholders, the consumer, trade partners, suppliers, the communities in which we operate, and of course, our shareholders. Next slide, please. For some years now, India has been one of the largest and fastest-growing TBA markets in the world. Growth is attributed to India's unique demographics. We've got nearly 50% of the population less than 25 years, 65% less than 35 years. Rising disposable incomes, urbanization and growing cultural acceptance of alcohol consumption. What is changing now is that we are at an inflection point where India, as a country and a culture, is being redefined. It's a time where a whole new chapter of India is being written, where we pick ourselves again and paint the future stronger, wiser, better, resilient, ready. Having rediscovered our roots, Indians are ready to fly, fueled by aspirations, enabled by new forms of technology and access, anchored on individual spirit, yet rooted to local heritage and moving progressively into the future. We see certain transformational consumer energies that will define the choices we make for our business and portfolio as we shape the path to our mission, aligning and thriving with these energies. Next one, please. The first one is rising affluence, providing really breakout opportunity at the top. By FY 2024, 30% of Indian households, which is approximately 100 million households, will be in the upper, mid, and high-income group, contributing to almost the entire increase of household income in the country over FY 2021 and FY... To FY 2024. This will mark transformation for the first time of a classic population pyramid structure to a diamond-shaped one, not just in the big cities, but also in tier two and three towns. A recent study of McKinsey concludes that India is poised to have the third-largest number of high-income households globally by 2030. This rising affluence creates opportunity for breakout growth at the top end of our portfolio as you can see in the chart in front of you. Next one, please. Within this larger macro context, we are also seeing some big consumer shifts within our industry. Premiumization as a sustained trend over the last eight to 10 years with the top end growing ahead of the middle and lower segments. This has continued through significant macro events, whether it was demonetization or GST-induced movement from informal to formal, including COVID. Normalization of alcohol in society and post-COVID emerging almost as a semi-essential. Both these are reflected in consumer behavior during and post-COVID, when consumers have not downtraded, even with constrained pockets. Unlike other categories, they prefer moderation and drinking better. The new India is driven by informality and fluidity, openness and self-discovery, discernment, experiences and repertoire. Even as we see the rise of global connection amongst consumers, we also see huge pride in India and renewed confidence in its future. The pandemic has indeed created a new normal, living in both the digital and the physical world, and the changed world of work and socializing. With that, drinking moving from outside into homes. Finally, consumers are demanding that companies go beyond profits and growth to address the challenges we face in society and our communities to create shared prosperity and sustainability for both business and community. Next one, please. The dominant consumer cohort in our business has always been the adult 30+ male coming from SEC B and C in middle India. There are now four fast emerging, growing consumer cohorts which have implications on our portfolio. The first one is affluent, high net worth individuals. I touched upon this earlier. India has witnessed a 27% increase in the number of ultra-HNI individuals between 2015 to 2020. A recent study by Knight Frank, covered by Fortune India's latest issue, estimates a 63% growth in the number of ultra high net worth individuals from now to 2025. It's more than doubling in half the period. Right. Legal drinking age to 30 years, I mean, the youngest large economy in the world, adding 100 million potential new drinkers in the next five years. With a median age of 28 years, India is the youngest country in the top 10 economies in the world. Similarly, women, right? Similar to many countries in the western world, India too is seeing women emerging as a key driver of societal change, building a more inclusive consumption narrative. This is not only about women as a target audience, but also a cultural transformation with a traditionally highly stratified society becoming more equal and inclusive. The boom towns. Growth has fast-tracked economic development across India, leading to higher consumption and purchasing power beyond the mega cities into smaller cities. I mean, if you look at an Agra, a Nagpur, a Vijayawada. Industry reports predict that by 2025, tier two and three towns will account for 45% of India's domestic consumption and 30% of its affluent households. Next, please. Within this context, therefore, of these big shifts in macro and consumer, we will deliver our mission through three pillars. A reshape of our portfolio while delivering our guidance of mid- to high-teens margin. Creating an organization of the future that will win in the future that is getting radically redefined by big societal and cultural shifts. Defining and executing an ambitious role for Diageo in society. I will now walk you through a little bit on each pillar. Next slide, please. Our portfolio reshape and margin progression will be delivered through breakout growth on Prestige and Above, new growth engines. Also, you would recall that in February this year, we announced a strategic review of a part of our popular portfolio that we expect will conclude in December. Last but not the least, value chain efficiency extraction to fund our growth and mitigate inflation. Next chart, please. Talking a bit about our portfolio reshape. While we have publicly declared focus since acquisition on P&A, the big shift we want to make now is to go for breakout growth, broader-based within P&A, beyond the historical 9%-10%, riding on the rapidly changing consumer and category trends we covered earlier. We will achieve this through three choiceful plays. The first is to accelerate in luxury and premium. In Scotch, where we have a leadership position in both imported Scotch and bottled-in-India Scotch, we want to further embed our leadership position. We also want to activate the fantastic Diageo global luxury and reserve portfolio wider to play to the consumer trend of repertoire, experimentation and discovery. Our iconic brands in luxury and premium, customer partnerships, leading presence in the on trade, coupled with organizational capability built through our dedicated luxury SBU, will give us a strong right to win in this space as we are right now. The second is strengthening play in upper prestige. The consumer is seeking redefined codes in this category, and we want to provide them with highly differentiated offerings that speak to these new codes. We have just launched a renovated Signature with a blend that is 100% crafted from nature with all-natural ingredients. Louise Martin, our new master blender, brings together a blend that has nature and craft at its core. The overall bundle, including the glass and all the packaging material, has been meticulously crafted with sustainability in mind. 40% of the glass that we use is recycled. The cartons are made of Forest Stewardship Council certified material that promotes responsible and nature ethical sourcing. Our closures save 130 tons of plastic a year versus what we used to use before on caps for our nip and pint packs on Signature. We have also brought a new unique offering called Royal Challenge American Pride to the country. This is a unique offering with bourbon, scotch, and select Indian malts and grain spirits, which delivers an absolutely stunning whiskey that challenges the traditional norms of consumption. It is designed to elevate consumers' experience with a delightful liquid that is highly versatile so that it can be consumed in multiple occasions, brunches and barbecues, outdoor hangouts, refreshing sundowners, and at evening and dinner occasions. It is also the first Indian whiskey blend that is offered in the highly innovative Hipster format that adds to the product's versatility. You can have it neat with a dash of water, on the rocks or a highball with soda. The choice is really yours to make. I invite you to hashtag #JoinTheAmericanPride. Last but not the least, the third aspect of our portfolio reshape is really reshaping the value proposition in lower and mid-prestige. Within this, last year's renovation of McDowell's No. 1 Whisky has created a significant momentum for the brand. India's first IMFL whisky with 70 years of whisky heritage, 100% grain whisky with Scotch and malts, which comes with strong quality checks. We will continue to invest behind McDowell's No. 1 and premiumize it so that we can continue the momentum we have built behind the brand. Last year, we invested behind McDowell's No. 1 Jalwa Shops, which also ties up with our agenda of retail transformation. We will continue to invest behind brand building, retail transformation, and dial up our consumer experience to further strengthen our brand equity and continue to recruit the next generation of TBA consumers with No. 1. On Royal Challenge Whiskey, we will restage Royal Challenge to drive recruitment. As you are aware, Royal Challenge Whiskey was renovated last year. The renovated brand is seeing traction in key markets like Haryana, Maharashtra, Goa. We will continue to build the Royal Challenge proposition with new liquid experiences, marketing campaigns, and variants, as well as strengthen the Royal Challenge Whiskey synergy with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Next chart, please. I would now like to show all of you some videos. Can we please have the videos for our participants? The hardest thing to do is to keep things natural. Only the greatest craftsmen in the world know it. They take the best that nature gives them and craft it into a masterpiece that is unique as nature itself. A signature you can hear. A signature you can taste. Crafted from nature. My Signature. On the back of changes in retail environment that are starting to come through in many states, I'm sure many of you have seen these fantastic stores that are coming around the country, which are improving the shopper experience so much. Next chart, please. The next element of our portfolio reshape is really new growth engines, which is all about transformational innovation. We see a big role for innovation that is transformational, not incremental or cosmetic. Going forward, our innovation will be sharply targeted to fast-growing and most profitable cohorts. We have significantly enhanced our Atmanirbhar made in India liquid and blend capabilities in our state-of-the-art technical center. This is demonstrated through the renovated No. 1, t he new liquid for Signature, Royal Challenge American Pride, and the launch of our first craft brand, Epitome Reserve. We see innovation ratcheting up and making a material contribution to our growth in the next three to five years. It's all about emerging opportunity spaces and fast-growing segments. What you have heard on our portfolio reshape has been about today's core, our brands today, and how we will grow them for tomorrow. A big shift we are making now is to go beyond present forward to now present forward and future back, to future-proof our business by tapping into the next sources of growth presented by emerging opportunity spaces and trends that are largely global and witnessing early traction in India. We have planted our first flag in craft through Epitome Reserve, launched in August 2021 as our first venture into craft. Epitome Reserve is an artisanal single grain whisky made from 100% rice grains. We made a limited edition of 2,000 bottles, all of which are sold out, with rave reviews on the liquid and overall craft presentation. We also believe premium beer presents a growth opportunity, and we have already started seeding Guinness, which is Diageo's iconic beer brand. This is only the beginning, folks. Watch this space for more. Next please. Last but not the least, our value chain efficiency extraction. On net revenue management, we have a well-oiled running setup looking to extract value from pricing, trade spends, and mix. Our portfolio reshape will dial up mix even more as we go forward. We have also built a robust productivity pipeline for year-on-year delivery that offsets almost about 50% of our annual inflation. We will continue to execute our manufacturing footprint optimization strategy and continue to build this productivity pipeline. Over the last year, we have also, with agility, undertaken office space optimization in response to the new hybrid model in the future of work, and we will continue to explore all these opportunities. We also have been investing smartly, you know, vis-a-vis our marketing and commercial spends. In order to enhance our efficiency and effectiveness of marketing spends, we have a tool called Catalyst, which helps us to optimally allocate and maximize the effectiveness of our marketing spend. On our commercial side, we have Edge 365 for improved efficiencies in fields, whether it's on must-stock list, efficient inventory management, improving our college and coverage rates, and we will continue to leverage these tools for even more effectiveness in the future. Next, please. Coming now to the second pillar of our strategy, creating an organization of the future, which is built on digital acceleration, talent and culture as growth drivers, speed and simplicity. Next chart, please. On the digital side for consumers and customers, we have many initiatives. Right. Social GOAT is a millennial lifestyle content website where we cover all aspects of life from food to events to TV shows to specific Alcobev Diageo brand-related content. It holds our brand homes, food pairing records, latest campaigns, contests, et cetera. Over the past year, we have seen 3 million visits. 80% of new users coming to this site, 20% repeat usage with an average view time of a minute. Right. These are quite amazing statistics, and we have achieved this by driving traffic from all our digital activations. Consumers just don't see the content on social media, but are able to interact and access a much broader world of celebrations. We are leveraging this data to input into our marketing and innovation agenda, and we will continue to strengthen the same. I have already mentioned to you Catalyst and Edge 365, which are cutting-edge tools to improve our spend efficiency. On the supply side too, we have brought in technology. We have invested in adoption of technical technology tools in supply planning and logistics, in high speed full automation of our bottling operations at our Nashik factory, and on reduction of maturation losses. We are now going a step further and have initiated Supply Transformation 2.0, which is rooted in driving digital excellence as a culture. This will cover all areas of the supply chain, including factory of the future, predictive demand sensing, advanced inventory optimization and capacity planning, artificial intelligence, for VR for employee safety, intelligence-driven purchase decisions, and logistics control towers for real-time information flow. We will be investing in this agenda over the next three to four years. Beyond the consumer, customer, and our supply chain, we are also bringing technology into areas of maximum impact. Our chief engagement officer, Amber, is the first digital employee of Diageo India. I recently had a chat with her talking about my first six months here in India, and it was very engaging, I tell you. We are also partnering with technology startups, my apologies, to address counterfeit. We have also recently run a global sustainability challenge to find cutting-edge solutions in solar and water. Next chart, please. On talent and culture as growth drivers. The first point I want to talk about is strong leadership bench. We are very confident in the quality of our leadership and are making targeted interventions to build the right talent for today and tomorrow. We've established a robust process for calibration and validation of talent across levels to drive consistently high standards and build robust succession plans for critical roles. We have customized leadership intervention for high potential mid-level managers and future leaders. We aim for a good balance between internal and external hires, and external hires, particularly in new age capabilities that we want to build, like digital. Last year, nearly 50% of our positions were filled through internal candidates. The second one, which is a real competitive advantage for us, is our purpose driving performance. We pride ourselves on our unique culture rooted in a deep sense of purpose, a passion for winning, and a personal connection to our brands and each other. We have a big focus on coaching our leaders to find their personal purpose, connected with the Diageo purpose of celebrating life every day, everywhere, and bringing purpose into their work. This is reflected in our most recent employee Your Voice survey scores. 93% of our people say, "I'm proud to work for Diageo." Our net promoter score on how likely would you be to recommend our products to a friend or relative is actually 82, which is globally best in class. 93% of our people say, "I know what I can do to help Diageo win market share," and our overall engagement index is 88%. We actually exceed benchmark norms quite a bit in all these parameters. Like I said, this is a real competitive advantage which helps us drive change with agility in our organization. Last but not the least, building capabilities of the future. We are building capabilities for the future in sync with our mission. We are already enhancing luxury selling, retail transformation, and digital capabilities within our organization. We are also helping our people to upskill and learn through LinkedIn Learning. We have also sponsored a customized learning platform called My Learning Hub, which helps people derive their own learning curriculum and enhance their skills where they want to. Next one, please. On the third element of building an organization of the future, I want to talk about two things, which is embedding sprints and hashtag radical liberation. Emerging studies show that organizations of the future operate with a fixation on speed and simplicity. We have been on a journey to be a flat organization, and now we are putting our flattened structure into greater effect in everyday ways of working and decision-making with sprints. Sprints are cross-functional teams that come together to work rapidly, hence a sprint, not a marathon, for two to three months on critical business projects. They deliver specific outcomes and dissolve thereafter. Through sprints, our people gain new skills, collaborate across functions and between HO and regions to deliver against our biggest business priorities within a short span of time. A big demonstration of this sprint way of working is Epitome Reserve, which was built or created from concept to launch in 85 days. We are going to be running sprints through our organization. In fact, people, as we speak, we've got about 10-12 sprints already running and people are really engaged behind this, and we think this is a great way to build inclusion and diversity. On the hashtag radical liberation, we are running this sprint, which is for process and business simplification. In the first stage, we have found ways to eliminate or simplify our business processes that will liberate more than 100,000 work hours, which is equivalent to 55 full-time employee time, which we are repurposing towards our growth supporting activities. We will continue to run radical liberation through the year and for the years to come so that we will empower and enable our front line to focus on what they want to deliver, which is big time growth. Next one, please. Coming next to our very critical pillar of Diageo in society. Our stakeholders are increasingly challenging businesses to show how they make a positive impact across all aspects of society. They rightly expect to see that businesses are generating wealth, fostering inclusion and diversity, respecting human rights, supporting their communities, and acting on important societal and environmental issues, including climate change and water stress. We are committed to building a more sustainable, responsible, and inclusive business and society. The issues facing society are complex and connected, and we are focused on the impact we can have throughout our value chain across communities, suppliers, our partners, customers, and consumers. Since the acquisition, we have a strong track record in sustainability and citizenship. We want to challenge ourselves to go much further. Last year, we launched Society 2030, Spirit of Progress, which is our new ten-year action plan on the role we will play in society. Society 2030 is fundamental to our mission to create long-term value for all our stakeholders, which is why it sits at the heart of our strategy. We have three goals that are built around the most material issues for our business context in India. Driving ESG from grain to glass, moving India towards drink better, not more, and leading inclusion and diversity. We have the same rigorous data-driven approach to the delivery of our ESG goals as we take for the rest of our business. Next, please. On driving ESG from grain to glass, we are really talking about three things. Pioneering grain to glass sustainability, tackling water, accelerating to a low carbon world, and becoming sustainable by design. This also includes marketing, market-leading practices towards employees, supply chain, and local communities, and exemplary governance and disclosure. Next, please. Next chart, please. On the grain to glass sustainability side, so far, since 2007, we have actually reduced our water usage by 55%. By 2030, we will do further reduction of 40%, and we will replenish more water than we use by 2026. We will be water positive by 2026. On the low-carbon world side, so far we have had a 95% reduction in carbon emission on Scope 1 and Scope 2, and we have already moved to 100% renewable energy in our own operations. By 2025, we're zero-carbon operations. On sustainable by design, we have already eliminated 2,000 metric tons of plastic from our packaging, and we have collected 20,000 metric tons of plastic waste. By the end of this year, we will be plastic waste positive, which means that we will be collecting more plastic from our communities than we put out into the community. On the market-leading practices side, our citizenship during COVID was demonstrated right from the start of the pandemic when the country was staring at a huge sanitizer shortage, and we lent our shoulder throughout the crisis by donating sanitizers, and then by donating medical equipment, supporting our on-trade, including non-customers through Raising the Bar and donating long-term public health assets during the brutal second phase. In all, between USL and Diageo plc, we have contributed over INR 130 crore to this cause. Diageo's commitment to and respect for human rights is fundamental to who we are and how we work. In alignment with the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, we have completed two phases of human rights impact assessments between 2018 and 2021, and this is quite industry-leading. Our own manufacturing sites and third-party manufacturing sites are adhering to high standards on labor rights, health and safety, and working conditions for labor. We have put in place strong mechanisms to review and track progress on these standards. We actively impart training on human rights to increase awareness of various employee groups. We also aim to promote this awareness in our tie up manufacturing units and in our supplier groups. Brand promoters play an important role promoting our brand portfolio to customers and consumers at the point of sale and at events. The Diageo Brand Promoter Standard establishes principles and guidelines for the deployment of brand promoters and is based on our values and our commitments to respect and protect human rights for all those who work with us and our third-party suppliers, business partners, as well as the outlets that we partner with. On the employee wellness side, the wellness mantra at Diageo India is ensure health and well-being of employees beyond work, and not just in their role as employees. The We Care program focuses on eight dimensions of wellness occupational, emotional, spiritual, environmental, financial, physical, social, and mental as we move ahead. As most of you will be aware, we have launched a 26 weeks paternity leave policy, which also has been quite leading, not only here, but Diageo globally has done that. Next, please. The next element of our Diageo in Society is about moving India towards drinking better, not more. While most people who choose to enjoy alcohol do so responsibly, we recognize that the misuse of alcohol can harm individuals and those around them, damage our industry's reputation and make it harder for us to create value. We want to move India towards drinking better, not more, an approach that is rooted in our social values and aligns with our business model as a producer of premium drinks. We will do this through shaping drinking attitudes towards moderation, tackling harmful drinking through sustained multi-year programmatic interventions on drink driving and underage drinking, and marketing our brands responsibly through self-regulation. Next chart, please. We champion health literacy and tackle harm through our DRINKiQ platform. Last year, we launched an updated version of DRINKiQ with comprehensive information on alcohol and health, and a new screening tool to identify whether users are drinking at higher risk levels. We have reached 1.6 lakh people so far through DRINKiQ, and we plan to reach 40 lakh people by 2024. On the anti-drink driving, we promote changes in attitudes to drink driving through educating people about the dangers of drink driving and also capacity building for enforcement officials. We are looking at capacity building for 1.2 lakh enforcement officials in 65 cities across 22 states, and we will reach 8 lakh people by 2024 with the anti-drink driving message. We've also been educating young people, parents, and teachers on the dangers of underage drinking. We have trained so far 2.3 lakh people in 300 schools in 15 states, and we plan to reach 15 lakh people by 2024. What makes me really proud is that 95% of our own people say that where I work, people feel confident and able to play a role in promoting positive drinking. Next chart, please. Coming to inclusion and diversity, this is deeply embedded in our values. In India, we've been a pioneer in this space for our industry with regard to women representation in our business. We have extended our inclusion and diversity agenda to include people with disabilities and the LGBTQ community. Our aim is to be the employer of choice, not only on gender, but for people with disabilities, and build an inclusive workplace for the LGBTQ community. We want to drive progressive portrayal in every piece of creative work we put out for all our focus brands. Moving away from hackneyed stereotypical representation and portraying real people's stories and narratives, particularly our key iconic brands like Johnnie Walker, Black & White, Black Dog Scotch, McDowell's No. 1 and Signature. All these have women at the heart of their comms work owning the stories we tell. Not just that, women and members of the gender spectrum play a key role in our content and influencer program. Through our community programs on water, sanitation, and learning for life, we empower women in our local communities. 50% of the beneficiaries of our community programs are women. Next, please. On this chart, the one that you see on with figures, it actually depicts our ExCom. We have moved to from 0% of our executive committee in Diageo India in FY 2016 to now 50% of our ExCom is women. Overall, women representation in our business has moved from 6.6% in FY 2015 to 22.2% end of last year. Our target is to have 50% women in leadership by 2025. We focus a lot on inclusion. Our Your Voice survey shows inclusion scores of expressing themselves. Our people say, "In Diageo, people from different backgrounds and opinions can be themselves and thrive." 87% of our people say that, right? We focus a lot on inclusion through something called Inclusion Week. It's an employee-led week that celebrates diversity, embraces inclusion, encourages colleagues around the world to have open conversations about a range of important and challenging topics, and then we carry this through the year, right? You can see pictures on the slide of our progressive portrayal in some of our communication work. Next chart, please. Bringing this all to a close, bringing it all together. I know it's been a lot for you to absorb. Our mission is to be top-performing CPG company in India, delivering sustained double-digit profitable top-line growth and long-term value to all our stakeholders. This will be done through three pillars: portfolio reshaped to deliver leveraged growth, creating an organization of the future so that we can be a great place to work and create the leaders of tomorrow, and playing a big role of Diageo in society, really focusing on ESG for stakeholder value. Next one, please. Just to recap it all, there are big shifts we make. The first one is really focusing on sustained double-digit, broad-based profitable top-line growth, broad-based breakout growth on P&A front. Moving from a present-forward approach to now a present-forward and future-back view of the consumer. Transforming our culture, not to look at legacy, but to look at what is best in class and get there. A culture which is built on speed and simplicity, and playing a very bold role in society through our Diageo in Society goals, really using ESG for stakeholder value. Last chart, please. Before I end, I actually wanted to extend an invitation to all of you to visit our DRINKiQ India website. As we approach the two most festive months in the year, we would love to go a step further, actually, and host you for an online DRINKiQ session in December, if you're willing. About a year ago, we approached the Indian Navy to conduct a DRINKiQ session. Hesitant at first, they agreed to a pilot. Delighted at the positive response, we were then invited to do more sessions, and within a few months, we covered INS Kadamba, the Naval Dockyard in Visakhapatnam, INS Valsura, Indian Naval Academy, and Southern Naval Command at Kochi. We went on to the Indian Army, and finally, the Indian Air Force station at Pathankot. We feel truly privileged to have covered nearly 1,500 officials of the Armed Forces. I invite you to this session, and I would like to say thank you very much. That's the end of our strategy refresh presentation. We will just take a two-minute break and be back with you to talk about our quarter two performance. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We ready to start? Yes. We will now begin the question and answer session. No, we are going. Any questions? Sorry, we are not going to Q&A. I will be making some comments on our quarter two performance. Okay. Then we'll open for questions. Good afternoon once again to all of you from the USL team. Let me now switch gears and provide a perspective on the quarter two results that we announced last evening. Having now heard the strategy refresh over the last 45 minutes or so, I'm sure you will start connecting the same to our performance in the quarter as well. As we anticipated in the July investor call, the quarter gone by witnessed normal operations by and large, barring for night curfew in major cities for some period. With the increased vaccination coverage and India crossing the 1 billion mark last week, the bounce back to normalcy has been faster than that experienced, post wave one, and this augurs well on the demand front. The supply side has been resilient, even though inflation continued to increase as we exited the quarter. On the overall operating performance during the quarter, in summary, it's been a strong quarter underpinning improved momentum across the business. Our people have responded with pace, agility and creativity to seize the marketplace opportunities. As I mentioned in the press release, we have indeed emerged stronger from the crisis. Our commitment to innovation and renovation in the portfolio continues. In addition to the renovated bundle of Black Dog Whisky rolled out in quarter one, quarter two witnessed the following interventions. Completely new 100% crafted from nature consumer bundle on Signature Whisky with master blender credentials. Unique recruitment offering with Bourbon, Scotch and select Indian malts and grain spirits, Royal Challenge American Pride. Success of Hipster on pocket now been extended to Smirnoff Vodka. Please do go and pick it up from your nearest store. Signature and Royal Challenge American Pride are in service of strengthening our presence in the upper prestige segment and premiumizing the portfolio. I've already spoken about both of these at length in the strategy session a little while ago. While all of you have seen the press release and the results, let me again call out the key salient points. Our reported revenue increased 14%. This is our highest underlying growth in the last 11 quarters. Our P&A segment grew at 20.8%, which is also the highest in the last 20 quarters. We were flat on Popular. Consumer demand in off-trade regained momentum rapidly after the COVID wave two impact in the preceding quarter. On-trade also demonstrated continuous recovery through the quarter, both store opening and footfalls. Price mix was strong at double digits during the quarter, driven by the top end in the P&A segment, growing high double digits. On the policy front, the industry is closely working with the government in West Bengal and Delhi. As communicated last time, we are keenly looking forward to the new policy in West Bengal and the operationalization of the new policy in Delhi at the earliest. Inflation has been on an increasing trend during the quarter, and continued management focus on portfolio mix and productivity led to a 190 basis points underlying improvement in our gross margins to 45.1%. Our A&P reinvestment rate at 7.3% is in line with last year same quarter, and reflects a normalization post the muted levels in the preceding COVID-impacted quarter. As also mentioned last time, staff cost increase in the quarter and the half is de-overlapping the prior year one-time decision of the management across the Diageo world to forgo the variable performance-linked salary component driven by the global uncertainty of the pandemic. Underlying EBITDA margin stands at 16.4% for the quarter, up 194 basis points versus prior year same quarter, primarily driven by the gross margin improvement. With the full impact of the accelerated debt retirement in 2021, and the lower interest rates post-retirement of the non-convertible debentures now reflecting in our financials, the underlying interest cost in the quarter is 58% lower than prior year. External debt now stands at less than INR 500 crores as of September 30, 2021. Profit after tax was at INR 273 crores in the quarter, a 113% increase versus prior year. In conclusion, I would like to reemphasize the following. We are happy with the current momentum in the business and are focused on sustaining the same. We are conscious of the inflation headwinds and are therefore working on a continuous pipeline of revenue management and productivity initiatives across the value chain. Our portfolio with the latest round of innovation and renovation is well-positioned to capitalize on the rapidly growing premiumization in the category. We remain committed to sustainable, profitable growth and long-term value to all our stakeholders. Last but not the least, the strategic review of popular brands that we announced in the Jan-Mar, March quarter is on track, and we will conclude the same by the end of the calendar year. With that, we can now open the lines for Q&A. Thank you so much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click on the video question button at the bottom of their screens. We will wait for a moment until the question queue assembles. Participants who wish to ask a question may click on the video question button at the bottom of their screens. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click on the video question button at the bottom of their screens. We will wait for a moment until the question queue assembles. Participants connected on the webcast, if they wish to ask a question, may click on the video question button at the bottom of their screens. We will wait for a moment until the question queue assembles. We have the first question from Abneesh, Edelweiss. Sir, you may go ahead, please. Yeah, thanks, and congrats on a brilliant presentation and very good numbers. My first question is on your beer foray. It's an iconic brand, it's a premium brand, and you also said that you are seeding the market. India is a mass consumption market. Mm-hmm. Want to understand how the LUP strategy can happen here. At some stage, do you see once the premium foray is successful, do you see a mass offering also in beer in the longer term? This is a very initial foray, and we are seeding Guinness, which is our most premium and popular brand around the world, as you know, Abneesh. We will continue to seed Guinness, and you know, the initial response is actually very good. We'll continue to seed Guinness. At this point in time, we have no plans to go mainstream on beer. Sure. That's helpful. My second question is on the P&A. When I see the P&A volume growth and sales growth, I see almost a 14%-15% gap, which was not the case in the previous quarter. Is there any one-off here? How should we read the 15% gap? No, there is no one-off in this. It is actually a price mix with the top end growing very fast and giving us that healthy price mix. This could sustain the premium end growing much faster and the gap between the volume and price, the sales growth? Yeah. Yeah. Abneesh, even if you look at our historical results, we always get a price mix of about anywhere between 2%-4%, right? This quarter, obviously, it's close to almost double digits. We believe with the Strategy Refresh that Hina has just spoken about, right, our desire will be to up the numbers from our historical delivery, right? Probably to land somewhere, you know, in between the historical range and what we have seen in the current quarter, right? Sure. The last question is on your innovation strategy and the advertising spends. In the historical, when I see USL's number, ad spend has been around 8%-10% of the sales. This time it is a bit lower, 7.3%. I do understand pubs, bars are not open, plus we have not seen the full normalcy. Going ahead, how do you see advertising as a percentage of sales? And if you could also discuss the innovation funnel, do you see that accelerating much more? You did discuss a bit, but if you could discuss in the next one to two years, how is the innovation funnel? Abneesh, you're right. I think our A&P spends are, you know, traditionally in the 8%-10%. We have a very robust A&P plan to support our growth initiatives, both on the core and innovation. Clearly, I mean, it was muted because of COVID, right? Even in the current quarter, right, it was 7% because for part of the period on-trade was, you know, subject to night curfews, et cetera. Going forward, yes, what we see happening is a virtuous cycle of A&P generation. As we premiumize more, we generate more A&P and we spend more and invest to grow. Also that gives us operating leverage on A&P. Then when we combine this with the spend effectiveness that we are generating through, you know, our Catalyst tool that I spoke about, we actually feel very confident about a very good level of A&P support to all our growth initiatives. On the innovation side, as I mentioned, we are now taking a bigger future back approach, and we've actually created a big pipeline of, you know, portfolio opportunities as well as, you know, fast growth segments that can emerge, even, you know, channel growth formats, et cetera. O ur first foray in craft was just one of the beginnings of innovation. Innovation will certainly contribute much more to our growth going forward. I mentioned that we've developed, you know, very strong capability now in liquid and blend, at our state-of-the-art, technical center. You know, our renovations now are very powerful. I would say watch this space, Abneesh. We want to be able to give you news, quarter after quarter. Sure. Thanks. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Abneesh. Thank you so much. We have the next question from Percy, IIFL Securities. You may go ahead, please. Hi, team. Congrats on a very good set of numbers. My first question is on the results. You mentioned that this is broadly a normal quarter. If I look at your sales growth versus the two-year-ago period, the same quarter two years ago, your sales growth point to point is about 11%, which is about 5.5% CAGR. Isn't this rather low growth for the kind of initiatives that you're doing? Can you give me some idea on what kind of growth would you be targeting going into the future? Certainly not 5%, 6%, right? Percy, there is noise versus FY 2019. You are well aware of the Andhra Pradesh market access issue. FY 2019 had fully Andhra Pradesh incorporated, right? One of that, you'll just have to eliminate that noise to arrive at what our genuine growth in the current quarter is. We are very, very happy with what we have delivered. Hina has already spoken about what our sustained top-line aspirations are, which is double-digit revenue growth, right? We will absolutely be committed to that. Right. Secondly, with the kind of premiumization that you're seeing, would you say that your margin journey is not yet complete and there is a decent amount of headroom for the EBITDA margin to go more towards the 20% kind of a number over a two to three-year period? Percy, again, we have already called it out, right, in the strategy refresh that Hina just shared. We remain committed to our mid- to high-teens margin progression. Broadly, if you see, we are there somewhere around mid-teens, right? Like Hina has mentioned earlier also, it is an and journey for us. We do expect that to inch up gradually to the high teens. Last question, if I may be allowed. The review of the popular brands, what exactly is the thought behind that? I mean, I understand that these brands would not be very high margin brands, but unless they are loss-making or unless they're sort of giving you a return on investment which is below your cost of capital, why would you want to exit these brands? It does give us some heft in distribution, and there are some other sort of intangible advantages of being in there. Your thoughts on that, please. Yeah. Again, you know, too early for us to call out anything. As we have mentioned, the strategic review is on track. What we had disclosed at that point of time also, right, in the Jan-March quarter when we announced it, that this is a logical progression of the strategy that we have been following over the last four to five years. Again, as we get closer to our final outcome of the strategic review, we will be able to share more details on that. Okay. That's all from me. Thanks, and all the best. Thanks. Thank you, Percy. Thank you so much. We have the next question from Abhinav, Macquarie. You may go ahead, please. Hi. Hi, team. Hi, Hina. Thanks a lot for that presentation. I actually had two specific points. One, just following up on what Abneesh said, could you give us a sense on what levels of ad spend to sales would you target on a steady-state basis? I mean, is there a number that you have in mind? Two, I mean, if I go through your, you know, what you highlighted, as we look to breakout growth in the prestige segment, I see a lot clear focus on accelerating the luxury and, you know, upper prestige, as you rightly coined, called out. Does that entail a higher dependence or higher, you know, partnership with Diageo brands? Is that understanding correct? Yeah. No, thanks, Abhi. Let me just take your first question. Yeah. I'll answer the second. Yeah. Our A&P guidance is, I mean, broadly we target about 8%-8.5%. That's our full year number if you look at the last set of historical also. Then if you kind of look at what- What that translates into only our CNA segment, it's close to double-digit spend, right? That stays exactly the same. We are not changing that. You might see a little bit of noise between quarters, et cetera, et cetera, but by and large, on a full year basis, we will be exactly in the same range, right? I'll just hand it over to Hina to answer your second question. On your question on bottled-in origin, which is the Diageo portfolio, right? We are definitely looking to accelerate, like doing premium, as I mentioned in the Strategy Refresh. I mean, we are leaders in bottled-in origin and bottled-in-India scotches, right? We are going to look to continue to strengthen this leadership in both the segments, both through still penetration of these brands and by bringing newer offerings from the Diageo global portfolio to India. Because these brands really have global equity, and they are very much in demand as the market is premiumizing as Indians travel. I mean, Indians love to travel, right? There is huge exposure to our brands, and there is definitely, given the experimentation, the repertoire drinking that we are seeing in India, we are definitely trend towards, you know, demand for more. We will bring in more and, focus on this segment. If there is a dependence on, you know, if we are going to enhance that relationship, could you share whether the commercials which we have with Diageo does that change or is that, you know, what is the? Because you know, when we had initially done the agreement, there was some talk of margins, what level of margins they would be. Is there a number that is available, or can we kind of have some clarity on how the commercials are? That's all from my side. Thank you. I think we are the national distributors for, you know, Diageo, in India, right? Mm-hmm. This portfolio, because of the fact that it's high pricing and at the top end, is very gross margin accretive for us. It is really gross margin accretive. You know, even if you look at an EBITDA per case, right? It is almost double that of USL portfolio on a case basis, right? It gives us huge fixed cost absorption and also operating leverage, right, to bring in this portfolio. The third thing I would say is that this is zero fixed asset investment portfolio, right? Our return on invested capital, I mean, pre-tax is more than 35% on this portfolio, and even on a post-tax basis, very healthy, 25%-30%. Actually, the commercials work very well for our USL business and actually help our mix, right? Okay. Sorry. It's the understanding is that gross margin may not be the right way. It's the EBITDA margin that kind of flows through because of the high realization that comes through and is that is the way I should look at it, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thanks. That's right. Thanks. Just in instance, I respond. Yeah, yeah. It's rupees per case accretive. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Thanks, Abhi. Thank you so much. We have the next question from Mr. Manoj Menon, ICICI Securities. You may go ahead, sir. Hey. Hi, Hina, Abanti, and hi, Pradeep. You know, thanks for a very insightful presentation and wishing you good luck, you know, as you execute this, you know, over the next few years. The question number one you know, is on the policy front. There are two parts to that thought process which I have. You know, Anand used to tell us, you know, for the last three, four years that, you know, as an organization and as a responsible market leader, we have been working with multiple state governments at different levels, you know, in terms of, let's say, working with the government, in optimizing the collection. I t's good win-win for everyone. If you could just help us understand where are we in this journey? Because we have seen some improvement, I would say, quote and quote, "From a policy point of view," in the last few years. That's point number one on the policy side. Some examples and directional comment would be very helpful. The second aspect is also of what the industry, you know, has been requesting or lobbying, you know, for, let's say, reduction in, you know, customs duty, et cetera, for the premium portfolio. That also can be a significant option value, you know, from a portfolio point of view. That's question number one, the two aspects to the government. The second one is what my friend Percy asked a little earlier. I just want to push the envelope a little more on that. You know, honestly, I'm a little worried, you know, when I look at the strategy of, let's say. I understand that there is a profit pool part, you know, in the mass market or what we call it, you know, the popular segment. I completely understand that part. But as Percy rightly asked, kind of, you know, as long as these are EVA positive, it may be P&L percentage margin or profitability dilutive. I get that, and there may be reasons why you're doing what you're doing. But I've looked at a few case studies in India. We can discuss that separately offline, kind of. I'm a little worried about this because, you know, some, let's say, share of shelf, which may not be profitable for you today, let's say for an XYZ, you know, with the right business model, quote, unquote, "in the Indian context," may be profitable. You know, in the real long term, you know, how have you thought about this aspect? I'm sure you would have, you know, in your strategy thought process on that. That's just it. That is two questions. Thank you. Can I request Abanti to answer the first two questions? I will come back on the third question. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, sure. Thank you, Manoj, for that question. On the policy ones, let me start with the answer to the first one, which is a little bit more sort of, you know, about things that can unlock growth, which has been the center point in Hina's strategy refresh. Two things to this. The first one is absolutely as an industry, we are working very closely with relevant stakeholders to put out a case for why from a consumer premiumization trend perspective it makes sense to make imported spirits more accessible to consumers in India, and the fact that customs duty remains very high. All I will say is it is very promisingly poised at the moment. As the U.K. and India look to really sort of recraft their investment and trade sort of partnership in the FTA that's underway. That's what I will say that, you know, that's the effort that's happening. The second point I would add here is, you know, we haven't, as an industry kind of waited only for the U.K. India trade review and FTA, but have been working with states to look at what opportunities there might be to reduce state level excise duties on BIO. You would know that this has met with success across many states, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan some years ago, Karnataka. We are looking at a few more such opportunities with critical states. The interesting thing is that state duties contribute a large part, upwards of 34% of the value chain. Actually to the extent that state duties are brought down on BIO, that's really has a big impact on moving consumer prices down and making BIO more accessible. That's something that's already happening and that's in fact one of the things that's also underlying the you know the accelerated premiumization that's happening at the top end, at the BIO end. On working towards you know unlocking sort of opportunities for better working capital management, I think that's been work which has been done. For example, in the state of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, you know, that's something that we have achieved. I will just ask actually PJ to come in here and just add a little bit more color. Working capital. Yeah. Thanks, Abanti. Manoj, on working capital, you know, like, Abanti has mentioned, we continue to work with governments, right? We've had a few successes over the last couple of years, et cetera, and that's an ongoing effort. I guess at a slightly more elevated level, the simple response that I've provided always is that if you look at the last three to four -year progression, our working capital as a percentage of NSV has come down broadly from about 35% to roughly about 23%-24%, right? We believe that this is right now the steady state. We continue to work with the governments to, you know, ensure that, you know, some unlocks keep happening. Right. Coming to your question around the popular portfolio, Manoj, I would say two things, right? The first thing is to say that it was called a strategic review for a reason, right? It is core to our strategy of portfolio reshape and focusing on premiumization, where the biggest growth opportunities are. Now, having said that, we have not reached any conclusion on the popular portfolio, right? It can have many. It can have multiple directions, right? One could be extension of the current franchisee model, right? It could also be about accelerating select brands through more investment. It could be divestment. It could be an organizational review around the operating model, et cetera. This review is underway and we will try and conclude it by December, and then I think we'll be in a better position to talk about the implications once we've reached some direction, final direction. That's absolutely clear. Good luck once again, and season's greetings, you know, for the festive season. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Manoj. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have the next question from Vishal Punmiya, Nirmal Bang. You may go ahead, please. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible? Yes, you are. Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Yeah. The first question is, actually, from a medium-term perspective, you covered in your presentation that you are looking for a double-digit growth at a portfolio level in the medium term. If I just see from a Prestige and Above portfolio perspective, because the popular portfolio is under review, so no point discussing that for that portfolio. Where do you see the Prestige and Ab ove growing in that particular timeline? And within that, what could be the breakup of sales growth between volumes, mix as well as pricing? How do you see those panning out over the medium term? And the second question is more from a near term. In terms of margins, how do you see RM panning out in the next two, three quarters, especially more from a point of view of glass as well as ENA? While I know the fact that the government would be coming out with the ENA prices in a month or so, but if you can give some sense on the RM scenario going forward, and obviously in terms of margin profile going forward. I'll answer your first question, and I'll hand over to Pradeep to answer the second one. On your growth question, I think if you look at premiumization, which has been a sustained trend in the industry for the last eight to 10 years, we've seen that the top end is growing faster than the middle and the lower end, right? Given the consumer trends I talked about, right, you know, of evolving needs of repertoire, experimentation, I mean, we see growth in the upper mid prestige and luxury and premium all, right, going forward. Our strategy calls out that we will accelerate luxury and premium, we will strengthen our play in upper prestige, and we will reshape the value proposition in, I mean, in the lower and the mid prestige to cater to these evolving consumer needs. Now, our premiumization journey will only get accelerated and become more broad-based. Our growth of double-digit comes from the fact that it is broad-based breakout growth based on these transformative innovations and offerings in the segments, as well as the new growth engines that I called out, right? Which is about the future opportunities and taking lead in that, for example, the epitome reserve craft. We do see very healthy growth and premiumization momentum to continue, and we feel confident about delivering our double-digit growth with this strategy. Cming to the margin question, over to Pradeep. Yeah. Nirmal, I mean, your question was specifically focused around inflation. As Hina mentioned in her opening comments also, we are seeing inflation headwinds, as is the rest of the CPG sector in India. In fact, if at all, we are slightly lower than the rest of the CPG. We continue to work on our productivity pipeline, right? As we have always said, we would want to focus on things we can control and influence, right? Which is our own productivity, which is revenue management, as well as our cost productivity initiatives, apart from our, you know, A&P operating leverage and overheads optimization, right? Broadly, to give you some numbers, this quarter, the quarter that has just passed, inflation was in the range of about 1.5%-2% in our overall portfolio, right? And it is inching up, right? As all of you are aware, with the fuel costs, the energy costs, and let's say the international logistics costs, et cetera, right? Inflation is shooting up. We do expect this range to go up in the coming quarter, and we are trying our best to mitigate through revenue management and productivity. We've lost connection for the participant. Oh, I will now take the next question. We have the next question from Srivatsan, Investor. You may go ahead, please. Hi, I'm a retail investor. I've been associated with United Spirits from 2014. I have a few basic questions to the board of United Spirits. One, what is the percentage of premium products going forward? I could see there is a mix saying that it was less than 50%. Now it has grown to 72% P&A, our segment. What is the vision going forward in 2023, 2024? That's my first question. Second question is any updates or any information about the share buyback from the investor point I'm asking. Multiple legacy one-off issues that we had to absorb in our P&L post-acquisition. We are pretty much on the verge of wiping out our accumulated losses, which is a mandatory requirement for distribution of dividend, right? That should happen very, very soon over the next four to six quarters in our assessment, and we should be back to our distribution of dividend from that point of time. Thank you. Any updates on the buyback? Because from 2019 and 2020, there were news coming up when Anand was there, as a CEO, probably a lot of things happening around the share buyback. There is nothing that we have discussed specifically so far. I think first we want to get back to distribution of dividend and then, you know, like, multiple options, that would also be an option, at some subsequent point of time. Thanks and all the best team for your good performance. Thank you, Srivatsan. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have the next question from Mr. Jaykumar Doshi, Kotak. Sir, you may please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for a very nice presentation. I have two questions. The first one is, bulk of the profit pool industry resides in the prestige segment. If you look for the past five years or maybe even beyond five years, United Spirits has lost market share to Pernod in both mid-prestige and upper prestige. You know, there is an interesting comment in the presentation that 93% of your employees know what is needed to gain market share. I would like to sort of understand what is your early assessment, what are the steps necessary to gain market share in both these segments. I'm aware that you're doing quite well at the luxury end, but you know, mid-prestige and upper prestige, please. First, hi, Jaykumar. Thanks for your question. The first thing I would say is that in our assessment, we have performed very competitively over the last few quarters, you know, especially after the COVID first wave lockdown opened, right? When we launched the renovation of Number One and also Royal Challenge Whiskey in the market, right? The No. 1 Renovation has done extremely well. Basically, you know, it's got significant momentum. We are very proud of the brand. It has 70 years of whiskey heritage, and we are continuing to invest in No. 1 And basically, you know, continue to build the brand, premiumize it, invest in Jalwa stores and leverage this momentum. On Royal Challenge Whiskey, it has had a mixed response. In some states it's done quite well, and in some states we have more to do. Actually, as we speak, we are reviewing the whole mix. Like I mentioned in my strategy, we will be looking to restage Royal Challenge at some point in time to do even better, right? Now, on the upper prestige, I just spoke about two big, you know, renovation and innovation launches, right? The Signature renovation, which is really all about nature and craft, very, very differentiated in upper prestige, playing to the new chords that the consumer wants. Also a very sustainable bundle, right? We spoke about the glass being recycled, and we spoke about being responsibly sourced, removing plastic. The young consumers in upper prestige actually are really wanting to buy more of such products, right? Royal Challenge American Pride is a brand-new bourbon-based IMFL offering from us and the first of its kind again. Definitely our team knows what they have to do to gain market share, and they've been working furiously on these innovations and more to perform even more competitively going forward. Thank you, that's helpful. Second question is, practices or best practices or learnings that you know from your experience in Africa that you think is applicable and can be replicated in India? I would say that Africa has a lot of similarities and a lot of differences, right? I mean, I would say in terms of, you know, managing the volatility, managing the regulatory sustainability challenges, India and Africa are quite similar, right? I would say that it's not about, you know, comparison with Africa. We want to be best in class in India on all the aspects, whether it is consumer insight and innovation, which is transformational, whether it is our supply chain, and as we have called out very ambitiously, the ESG part, right? Being, you know, driving a lot of sustainability and contributing to our communities. I think we have a competitive advantage in terms of our people being completely connected with the company purpose, right? Our company purpose is about celebrating life every day, everywhere, and that is built on creating a win-win for all the stakeholders, whether it's employees, whether it's customers, consumers, et cetera. This change of best in class actually will come very fast in our company because everyone is so connected to the purpose, right? It is about being best in class, Jaykumar, in every aspect of the business. Thank you. If I may ask one quick one. Sorry. Inflation, what are your views from the short to medium term perspective, and are you engaged with the state governments proactively for some price increases in anticipation of any inflationary pressures? Look, I think the answer is absolutely yes. We are engaged with the state governments for price increases, and I think, you know, we will continue to do that as inflation headwinds, you know, continue to emerge, right? Overall, I would say that, you know, our equation really is about productivity and net revenue management to mitigate inflation and we try and, you know, mitigate at least half the inflation every year through these initiatives. Now, in years commodities go up and, you know, it's difficult to do that. In some years, it's much better, and actually we do better on this equation, and therefore it evens out over a period of mid- to long-term, right? So, we are continuing to do that. Pradeep just spoke about the fact that, you know, we are trying to mitigate at least half the inflation through productivity across the value chain, through you know, revenue management levers of mix and trade spend efficiencies through overhead optimization. Our view is that we will continue to focus on the area that we control and influence, which is doing all these initiatives. Over a period of time, I think this strategy works well for us internally. Thank you so much, and wish you the very best in this journey. Thank you so much. Thank you. We have the next question from Mr. Prakash Kapadia, so you may please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions from my end. You know, in our endeavor to grow double digits, is it fair to, you know, look at over the next four to five years, 6%-7% kind of a mix and a price growth and 4-5% volume growth? Is that more sustainable in our view over the mid to longer term? That's my first question. Second, you know, on Mumbai and Maharashtra and Karnataka, which are, you know, the so-called free pricing markets, what trends are we seeing in terms of premiumization? And also if you could give us some color on geographies where we have lower market share versus competition, which could be a focus area to grow faster across India. Do you want to take that? Let me take that, Prakash. I mean, broadly, you know, we've never got into a split of the guidance. We will restrict ourselves to our aspirations, which Hina has clearly articulated in the strategy refresh session, which is that of growing double digits on a sustained basis, right? Now, the breakup of that double digits could be different, right? You know, over a 4-5-year period, that could be different. Some quarters, our volume could be a little higher, et cetera, mix could be a little lower. But broadly, you know, through a combination of these three levers of volume, pricing and mix, our endeavor would be to try and hit double digit on a sustained basis, which as Hina has acknowledged also very candidly, we haven't been able to deliver historically, right? That's the- Right. Pitch we want to make, you know, on our top line growth. Can you just remind me on your second question, Prakash? Yeah. On you know, free pricing markets, Maharashtra and Karnataka, what trends are we seeing in terms of premiumization? You know, across India, some color in geographies where you know, we have lower market share, which can you know, be a focus area, which can help us grow faster in you know, key markets or you know, weak markets. What are we seeing? Prakash, again, I'll have to keep it a little general. You know, we have normally not kind of got into this disclosure of state-wise positions, et cetera, right? But- In terms of geographies, east, west, north, south is also fine. I'm not looking at. Yeah, the premiumization trend, suffice to say, that's largely consistent throughout the country, right? Very clearly, P&A is growing above Popular, right? Within P&A- Right. The top end of the P&A portfolio is growing significantly ahead of total P&A, right? Those are two underlying trends that are fairly consistent across the country. There are no pockets, et cetera, right? That's one. Between Maharashtra and Karnataka, I just have the privilege of having Abanti, right? Maybe I'll just pass on the question to her on pricing. Karnataka is definitely not a free pricing state, but I'll let Abanti answer. Yeah. Just on pricing, firstly, Prakash, Maharashtra is a free pricing state. Karnataka is, in some ways in theory, a free pricing state because manufacturers are free to decide which particular excise duty slab they want to operate on. The issue in Karnataka is, you know, manufacturers hesitate to do that for commercial reasons because of the way the excise duty slabs are moving from one slab to the other results in, you know, a very big, X times impact on the consumer price. Obviously, as commercial operators, we are all very sensitive to that. That's sort of what holds back, sometimes individual players who decide on their own, obviously. The bigger opportunity, as you may have rightly called out, is really to premiumize the structure of the market right now, and this is industry domain information publicly available. About 92% of the Karnataka market is really popular, and there's only 8% which is prestige. That is, you see, very hugely under indexed to the GDP per capita as well as other sort of consumer macro factors. That is a real opportunity for the industry, and it's something that many industry players together within their associations are working on. On Maharashtra, I mentioned that it is a free pricing state. You still have to get kind of approval, like in most states from the excise departments, but that's more a procedural thing rather than an ideological thing. Again, in Maharashtra, there is an opportunity for premiumization, accelerated premiumization, particularly at the BIO end, where, as you might be aware, because of very high excise duties, BIO pricing is much higher in Maharashtra than other states. That's another opportunity that industry is working on. Right. That is helpful. Is it fair to assume Maharashtra would be the largest contributor to premium brands for us? Well, it is in the top five, Prakash. Oh, fine. Thank you. All the best. Thank you, Prakash. Thank you so much, Prakash. We'll take the next question from Mr. Alok Shah, Ambit Capital. Sir, you may please go ahead. Sure. Hi, thank you very much for a very well-articulated presentation and strategy refresh. My first question is, when we think of the new launches, be it American Pride or be it the Signature, and in the past also, you know, your team has done multiple renovations, innovations. The current confidence in terms of winning back market share, getting double-digit growth, et cetera. Does it come because now you believe your pricing is right or you believe the blend was somewhere not appropriate previously? From where do you think, you know, you're getting this strong confidence? That is my first question. Okay. Hi, Alok. I think our confidence comes from, you know, sharp consumer insight and the liquid and blend capabilities that we've built, which are really best in class in India, you know, at our state-of-the-art technical center. We have been investing and are investing much more deliberately on getting very sharp consumer insights using the data and analytics through our, you know, I described, through Social GOAT, et cetera, right? To come to a very good picture of what consumers want, what are they seeking, and, you know, then developing our innovation and renovations in line with that. I mean, if you look at the Signature, it is quite different, right? It plays to the chords of 100% natural. It plays to the chords of sustainability. It is crafted by our master blender, Louise Martin, right? You know, the new consumer really wants this. They want craft, they want, you know, sustainability, they want natural chords. It is for people who are, you know, celebrating their authentic selves, right? Seeking those personalized chords of success. We are very confident in our insights. We are very confident in our technical capability to give out fantastic liquids. This is evident in Signature, Royal Challenge, American Pride, number one renovation. We are also very, you know, confident because of the future back view we are taking on new growth engines, which is giving us a lot of insight on where the market is going. On pricing, do you think that the, you know, pricing of the product is not gonna be really a challenge considering the slab in which you operate? Look, I mean, we are going to be competitive on pricing in the segments we are playing in, right? We are going to give the right offerings at the right price, you know, within each category and segment. You know, I think that's a normal course of business. I mean, we are able to charge value to the concepts we bring and the differentiation we bring. Wherever we have a chance to, we will. Right. Got it. My second question is on your medium-term EBITDA margin guidance, which remains mid- to high teens%. You know, while giving this guidance, do you factor in your outcome of strategic review? Or once the strategic review outcome comes by, you know, that could be a reset. Essentially the reason that I'm asking is that once you strip out your popular segment, technically your EBITDA margin should go up unless you are saying that there are some inefficiencies because of the base change, volume, deleveraging, et cetera. That's it from my side. Yeah. Look again, you know, right now we are talking of the portfolio as is, right? Everything is to-do. What is the outcome of the strategic review? Hina has already mentioned. Look, we haven't reached a final outcome, right? Yeah. As and when that happens, yes, we will engage with this audience very quickly, right? As of now, whatever we have shared, it's in line with the portfolio as it stands right now. Got it. My only last suggestion is that, you know, while we have followed multiple strategies and initiatives, you know, will you be disclosing more details quarter after quarter for us and the investors to analyze, and, you know, essentially how do we fare on some of the blanks? Any thoughts on that? We will definitely endeavor to do that. I mean, the first step was to take you through the strategy, and as we unfold our milestones every quarter, we will definitely share them with you. Great. Thank you very much for this. That's all. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. We take the next question from Mr. Vaibhav Shah, ICICI Prudential. Should we go with them? Yeah. Thank you. Am I audible? Yes, you're audible. Yeah. First of all, congratulations to Hina and team for a very good presentation and very good set of operational numbers. I have two questions. First one is relating to the target that we have set, double-digit top line growth. When you talk about this, I just want to understand the finer print as to the segment when we talk about the IMFL. You talked about whiskey being the space. How do you see the other segments in the IMFL space, particularly white spirits, rum, and brandy? Is that a part of focus area for us? We have seen past data, so we have kind of lost some bit of market share in vodka as well. Can you provide what segments particularly do you see growing faster versus whiskey? And how do we plan to achieve this double-digit growth? Second question particularly pertains to our capital allocation policy. Now, since we have reduced our debt to minimum, and we would be in a position to be a net debt cash positive company, incrementally our CapEx spends have been range-bound. Can you just please provide us some guidance on our capital allocation policy? How do we plan to use the cash? I'll answer the first one, and then let Pradeep. Pradeep, I will not- Yeah. There is an echo coming. If you can just go on mute. Yeah. Right. On your question on, you know, the white spirits, et cetera. I mentioned that there is a big consumer trend of experimentation and repertoire drinking, and so we are looking at the whites portfolio as a whole in context of this repertoire drinking. We've already seen some traction on our gin portfolio, right? Both with Gordon's and Tanqueray, so we've dialed up activation of this. Even on vodka, I did mention, I think during my commentary, that we have put Smirnoff in this very innovative hipster pack, which is giving it momentum. We are going to look at the white portfolio definitely and activate it because of this repertoire drinking phenomenon that we see in the market. While the big focus, of course, will be, as I've described in the strategy, whites will also be activated. Yeah, let me take your second question, which is on capital allocation. Historically, you know, our CapEx spending has been in the range of about 2%-2.5%. Very broad ballpark numbers that are in my head, right? I don't think that has got anything to do with, per se, what are our debt levels on our balance sheet. We know that our business generates, you know, a healthy free cash, and therefore that has resulted in the, you know, debt retirement of more than INR 5,000 crore over the last three to five years. Our capital decisions, capital spending decisions are more based on the principles of need, capacity and growth, right? Rather than any allocation principles, right? That's what I would want to say to CapEx, right? We don't expect any dramatic shifts in, you know, our range of CapEx spending versus the historical levels. Sure. So if I may just follow up on that. The question more pertain to the forward-looking capital allocation policy. Do you look to imbibe any kind of dividend payout or some kind of guidance on that? Firstly, on the double-digit growth, what I wanted to understand is that we have a very strong brand portfolio. When we talk about in our presentation that India being a population of more than 65% in the age group of less than 35, and younger population being the female who are more open to experimentation and white spirits also. If I take just a consumer behavior trend from the West, where kind of gin and vodkas have outpaced the whiskey growth, so do you plan to actively use this segment, or our focus here would still be more on the whiskey side and probably the activations and innovations in gin and vodka would be more slower paced? The CapEx? Yeah. I think there is an echo coming if you can just go on mute. Right. Very consistent with what we have said, which is that Hina has already mentioned that the entire white space, you know, especially gin, we have already demonstrated actions, and we would really want to kind of, you know, expand our play on that. In terms of, you know, exploring opportunities, we continue to remain on the lookout for opportunities and any exciting opportunity that comes, we will definitely want to go after it, right? I mean, I don't think we were waiting for us to become debt free from that perspective. As and when an opportunity comes, we will be happy to explore that independently. To your last question, to your other reference of about the distribution of dividend, I thought we answered that again about four to five questions ago. Yes, that is very much on our minds, right? We are about probably, you know, based on run rates, we are probably 4-6 quarters away from that. That's very, very actively, you know, on our mind. We would want to come back to distributing dividends for our shareholders and increase our total shareholder return. Thank you. Sure. That's it from my side. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We take the next question from Susmit Patodia. You may go ahead, please. Hi, and thanks for the opportunity. Welcome back to India, Hina, and all the best to you. My first question is, if you can tell us, has there been any incentive restructuring? Because, you know, clearly the organization seems to be moving from cleaning up to now growth. Are there any changes at the employee level for incentive programs? Has there been any outlook change? I mean, nothing. I mean, not really. Very much the same. The key metrics of, you know, top line growth, share, profit and cash. Those are broadly the three, four metrics. Nothing significant, for sure that needs to be called out. Got it. My next question is, what's your thought as Hina for you specifically, what's your thought on RCB? How do you see that as an asset? W e obviously knew the interest Anand had for cricket, but just wanted to understand how you think of RCB. Look, RCB is very core to our business, so we remain very committed to you know, RCB as an asset. We are very delighted with what's happened in the recent bids on the asset value. No change in our strategy. We are very delighted. I've spent a few weeks in Dubai with the last IPL season. We remain extremely committed. Thank you and all the best. Thanks. Thanks so much, Susmit. Thank you. Bye. We have the next question from Latika. You may go ahead, please. Yeah. Hi, Hina and Pradeep. From Abanti. Thanks for good presentation. I have two questions. The first one is on the Scotch portfolio. Clearly this is going to be a larger piece, going ahead. If you could elaborate what is the current, you know, volume contribution and value contribution in your existing sales mix for this portfolio. And also if you could tell us about how are you thinking about reach of this portfolio? W hat is the current outlet reach for the Scotch portfolio and how do you see that expanding, going forward? So that's the first piece on the Scotch side. The second question I had was for Pradeep. One of the things I think you were trying to do was you know, getting more efficiencies on the ENA in-house distillation, right? What is the current update there? Are you looking at some bit of backward integration out there to ensure the volatility in raw material inflation is relatively lower? Yeah. Latika, thanks. Can you hear me, Latika? Yes, I can. Okay. Let me take the first question, which is, you know, what's Scotch. Yeah, on our Scotch, right. Broadly, what is Scotch? I have some kind of headline numbers parked in my mind, right. Scotch would roughly be about low double-digit right now in our overall portfolio. Clearly, you know, you've seen Hina call out. We really want to accelerate on that growth. Again, like the P&A versus Popular, it's fair to say that it will jack up in salience, right? We do expect it to reach a sizable salience over the next three to five years, right? That's all on Scotch piece. Second question. Your second question was on the ENA co-location. Absolutely. You know, we continue to work with our business partners to expand our co-location footprint. I think three to four years ago, our co-location footprint would have been in the range of 15%-20%. Currently we stand at about 50%, right? We would want to, you know, over the next three to four years, we would want to continue to increase, you know, that co-location footprint. What that gets us is supply security during volatile times. It also gives us a little bit of, you know, productivity, rupee productivity efficiencies. Thanks, Pradeep. One further question: what's the outlet reach today for the Scotch portfolio? Is that something that you're ramping up, you know, strategically a lot more? Yeah. I mean, basically it's, you know, there are many factors. I mean, definitely we are ramping up reach, right? I think it's more about where the demand is picking up and where states are, you know, launching progressive policies for development of the category. I think that's where you see the demand and that's where we are activating and, like, in fact, transforming the retail where we are able to improve the shopper experience, right? Not only for Scotches but for all our brands, right? We have a limited set of outlets to play with, right? It's 80,000 outlets. I mean, for us, every outlet is important as a contact point with the consumer. Yeah. Yeah. Latika, just to add to what Hina said, I was, you know, my mind was working on the same thing. Look, I don't think outlet distribution reach is really a differentiator in this category, right? I mean, 80,000 outlets total, but actual, you know, active outlets might be more closer to 55,000-60,000, right? So definitely that is increasing. But I think it's the consumer penetration that is relevant, and without doubt that is kind of going up. And that's what is allowing us to capture the kind of growth that we are capturing. Sure. No, Pradeep, where I was coming from was, you know, clearly, yes, you're right, maybe these 50,000 outlets are maybe active outlets for you. C onsidering couple of states have these taxes on, you know, Scotch, BIO and BII, you know, what is the existing presence? You know, how many outlets do carry these products? So I was just kind of thinking, you know, that number will only increase, right, say. I would say, Latika, everyone carries them, right? I think the traction level is dependent on, you know, the price affordability in different states, and that's what Abanti is working on in terms of the premiumization agenda in different states where the prices are not viable for the consumer. I would say the traction of our brands is so high that everyone carries some, right? All right. Good to know that, Hina. Thank you. Thank you, Pradeep and Hina. Thanks, Latika. Thanks. Thanks, Latika. We invite the next question from Mr. Harit Kapoor, Investec Capital. You may go ahead, please. Hi. Good afternoon, team. Just had two questions. The first one was, you know, on your P&A strategy. You know, obviously this space is exploding, as you said, and you're looking at extremely strong growth here. I think it'll probably be as attractive for you as it would be for, you know, even your competitors in the space, and there would be an increased activity there, probably led by you, but also by the other players in the space. I just wanted to understand whether you do believe over the next three to five years structurally the investment space or the ad spend that you kind of spend in this portfolio would have to go up to meet your growth targets as well as to kind of compete with all the new players or even the existing players who are launching products to, you know, to capture space in this, in this segment. That's my first question. We are very happy. Harit, we are actually very delighted that everyone is looking at this space and investing in it because that helps category growth, right? It actually accelerates the premiumization trend even more. You know, we are quite delighted, and we are going to focus on what we take as a consumer, you know, in view, right? Give the differentiated offerings that to cater to these evolving consumer needs. On A&P, I did say that, you know, as we premiumize, right, we generate the ability to invest more, so it's a very virtuous cycle. You know, it gives us operating leverage on A&P, and then, you know, combined with the efficacy that we drive, effectiveness that we drive through our Catalyst tools, we, you know, have a very robust sort of investment plan in our growth, right? It's actually a good phenomenon for the industry to invest. You're saying it's even on a net basis, taking all factors, you know, you still believe this to be materially margin-accretive or at least per-case accretive for your, you know, for the business over the next three to five years? Definitely. Absolutely. Definitely. Absolutely. Emphatically yes. It's growth margin percentage accretive and hugely rupees per case accretive on EBITDA. Correct. The second one was on the franchising, you know, part in the Popular business. You've seen some changes there over the last 18-24 months, probably accentuated by COVID as well. Just if you could give us a status check on, you know, where you are, you know, what are those terms now, probably without. Obviously, I know you wouldn't go into, you know, some of them because you are doing a strategic review as well. Just from a franchise perspective, where we are, what are those terms now and, you know, what gets booked now in the P&L versus what it was maybe 18-24 months back. Yeah. Very similar. Nothing has changed, right? But again, I do want to reemphasize, Harit, on some of the operating model changes that we have done in terms of way of doing business with the franchisees. About 12-15 months ago, we had created a separate dedicated strategic business unit for our Popular business, and we had a very senior team leader who kind of runs that business, someone who understands category management as well as operating models, right? We had transitioned into a joint-up business planning process with our franchisees that has really dialed up the engagement and the speed and agility with which we respond in the marketplace of our franchise territories also, right? Overall, we are happy with how that has done. The model remains exactly the same. The franchise royalty gets booked in our NSV, and that flows directly into our, you know, into our EBITDA. Obviously, as you are aware, the Andhra Pradesh market access issue created a bit of a headwind there because that was a large business and it was also the anchor business, the cash cow of our master franchisee, right? We are pretty much through that, and we have started lapping the impact of that. Ex-Andhra, you feel the business on the franchise side is fairly stable and, you know, the royalty income- Yeah. Stable and doing well. Got it. Yeah, that's it from me. Wish you all the best. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much, Harit. Thank you so much. We'll take the next question from Tejas Shah, Spark Capital. You may go ahead, please. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, Hina, Pradeep and Abanti. In the past, we have seen that the growth momentum in the industry gets disrupted with these regulatory interventions and Andhra being the latest case. The guidance that we have shared of double-digit growth is accommodating for such regulatory disruptions which are quite periodic or regular in this sector. Yeah. The answer is yes. I mean, basically, we, you know, we have seen this volatility, and I describe this best by saying that I used to handle 37 countries in Africa, and when some did, you know, some had issues, the others did very well. Net-net, we were quite okay. I think India is a, you know, comb ination of 36 countries, right? The answer is the same, right? Where, you know, some shut down, others open up. We've seen that, you know, even when markets close down, they do come back. We've seen that, you know, models become more acceptable. We are able to work with the governments to get more acceptable models, like we did in Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. Basically, it does factor this, and it does factor the outlook that, look, over a period of time, this all balances out. Yeah. Sure. Second question is, Hina, you made a very passionate case on renovation and innovation in the portfolio. If you can share some thoughts on potential intervention, if at all, required and go-to-market strategy as well. I mean, look, the route to market and go to market for us is quite defined, right? There's not a very different way to go. Basically, there are newer avenues opening up, like home delivery, for instance, right? It's an unlock that happened during COVID. Basically, while it is still quite small, and we know that these types of models take a long time to, you know, reach a tipping point. We see it as a growth, a game changer in the future. We are going to continue to work on these models with regulators, retailers, and the platforms, right, as they evolve. The other go-to-market, which I think is very important is this whole phenomenon of retail transformation, right? We are very happy that states are gradually giving very progressive policies on, you know, changing the shape of retail in the state, right? Look at what's happening in Delhi, for instance. It's a real you know game changer. We will continue to strategically invest in retail transformation. Some of the pictures I showed on my slide really improve the shopper experience, come closer to the consumer through this, and of course, digital, right? I mean, online, whether online itself as a delivery mechanism is not big or not, but digital engagement is quite high. We have been engaging. We have you know got programs like Social GOAT, et cetera, which take us closer to the consumer and actually activate around in-home consumption, which has gone up quite a bit. I mean, there is opportunity for us on the retail side, on home delivery as it evolves on the digital side, right? Sure. The last one, apart from Pernod, whom do you consider your key competition in the market? And are you concerned about players like Radico gaining significant market share in IMFL segment? Look, I would say we are not pompous, right? I think we look at all competition as competition to us, right? I think each company is doing well in what they are doing, right? Our view is to focus on the consumer and, you know, provide competitive and differentiated offerings in each segment for us to perform competitively, right? Definitely, I mean, we are cognizant of all competition and what they're doing. Yeah. That's all from my side, and happy Diwali to the team in advance. Thank you very much, Tejas. To you too. Thank you so much. Four minutes to go, so maybe we can make this the last question. Is that okay? Sure, sir. We take the next question from Mr. Anand Tyagi. You may go ahead, please. Hi. Hello, everyone. I hope I'm audible. Yeah, Anand. You're clear. Can we expect the company to be debt-free by the end of this financial year? With regards to the dividend distribution policy, if you could share the dividend payout range in percentage terms, and any plans to separately list RCB. Anand, three questions. I'll have to go very cautiously on each, you know, on each of them. Obviously we cannot provide any forward-looking guidance, right? But all I'll say is you can see the run rates, right? Yes. What kind of, you know, cash flows we generate, et cetera. Therefore, what is the timeline by which you expect us to be debt-free. It will be hopefully very soon. One. Second thing is. No, again, you know, like I said, we definitely coming back into distribution of dividends is a topmost priority, right? We are just kind of restricted by the wipeout of the accumulated losses. You are as close to the numbers as I am, right? And again, based on run rates, you will broadly get a sense of when we will, tip over that, right? So that's the second thing. And I definitely cannot disclose, you know, what are the kind of dividend distribution ratios, that we will get in. You know, as and when, you know, we reach that point of time, we will be happy to disclose, right? Yeah. That's it. RCB, Hina have already mentioned, very, very core to our business, very, very dear to us. We are absolutely, you know, excited by the kind of returns it generates, and we are happy to see its valuation going up by the recent bids also. Nothing beyond that that we wanna share. All right. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Anand. All right. I think time to wrap up. I just wanted to use the last few minutes to thank you all for your questions. I mean, to wrap up, I would just like to say that I can best describe this time as a celebration of our culture and a great example of how diverse experiences and perspectives drives growth and creates value. We continue to be focused on meeting the moment and deliver in, you know, financial year 2022, and build on our current top-line momentum. We will continue to invest in and accelerate what's already working and explore future growth opportunities and further unlock value from our ecosystem. I would really like to express my gratitude to all for their continued resilience, passion and ownership. I really want to thank you for your time today, your ongoing partnership and support for our business. Please do stay safe and well, and I wish all of you and your families a very Happy Diwali. Thank you so much.